pastel yellow, diamond eyes
by nineties
Summary: A heart that's broke is a heart that's loved, and Jason's is completely unblemished.


**note:** i actually think these two look p good together so ;;  
 **note 2:** someone suggest a title to this pls it's horrible

* * *

Jason Blossom has his hands, loose, dug deep in the pockets of his varsity jacket, sauntering in the hallways, eyes half-shut as if he was trying to block out the wolfish shrieks of varying teenage idiocy from behind him.

The students part out of their way, to Jason and his parade, playing music through virulent taunts and discordant sneers. The Bulldogs have won yet another official match, all in accordance to Jason and his well-grounded prowess. There's a reason for him being captain despite his physical form not being as prominent as Chuck's, but even the golden boy can't complain in the face of Jason whose eyes switch to a steely blue in the midst of a game where odds are stacked full against them.

Chuck and Reggie walk, laughing and jeering about sex and football, behind him, following his lead.

Cheryl, his twin, is in yet another dilemma regarding her followers in twitter — as lovely as always, she is, lips painted bloody red and hair the same hue, curling around the nape of her neck, drooping into flawless strands in every sashaying of her hips.

Jason has to incline his head a little bit over his shoulder to look at her, and even then does he notice how she has taken the habit of falling behind, content in her position at his back; again, following his lead.

It makes Jason clench his loose fists shoved deep within his pockets, unintentionally making the pointed ends of his gift stab prickling against his palm, not enough to bleed, not enough.

"Your party was _awesome_ ," commends Reggie with that notoriety of a jockish slur, reaching out a fist to shake Jason's varsity, and Jason is broad and steady and strong, so he doesn't falter in his steps, and the rest follow in shrilling harmony: "I was totally _wasted!"_ " _Best_ party yet!" "Never thought fancy wine would ever be better than beer." " _Belated happy birthday, you guys!_ "

"Of course," Cheryl flaunts, flipping her long rosy red, rosetta hair, hands to her sides and brushing lightly against Jason's arm. "Only the best for _you,_ Jay-jay."

Hm.

Right.

There is so much power in Jason's hands, too large for a high school boy to wield, but even with the potent influence that he has, he can't force the fifteen minutes of free time left to go faster, tick quicker.

"We _obviously_ know what Cheryl got," says Moose, eyeing the shimmer of the exotic crocodile leather of Cheryl's handbag, hanging daintily from her pointed fingers. Every girl within vicinity hasn't stopped gaping at it. With the exception of Kevin, who isn't one, but is so palpably giving bedroom eyes at it.

Cheryl rolls her eyes, but there's a quirk to her lips slighting into a pleased pomp. "Marc Jacobs Carolyn is always a gem. $38,000 barely covers it."

Gasps of astonishment and shuffling follows, and it's funny because Jason knows that these people like to pretend that sometimes Cheryl and him aren't as wealthy or preeminent as they really are, but when it comes to a time like this, they suddenly remember their place, their worth, and —

" _Damn_ ," someone curses behind him, beneath him.

And whilst Cheryl's eyes narrow into a twisted sort of glee at this person's demise, Jason's turn faraway and salient, thinking of his mother, his father, and a bloodline he'd never wanted to be born with, wanting to turn around and tell them and scream at them and —

 _Whatever_. Comes Jason's clipped tone, hushed and frayed with uneasiness and frustration. And, well, if Jughead Jones accidentally steps on his foot a period later in History, then it is entirely not his fault at all if his face morphs itself into a frigid sort of monster, and if he's just given the teen a mere taste of what his father, his Blossom name, has given him.

—

"I say Ethel gets six points," Moose says in the locker rooms, and it is the scenery that greets Jason as he exits from the showers, fresh after their practice.

"She should be worth more," one of the guys say from the other aisle of lockers, "shouldn't we rank the unlikely ones higher? I mean they aren't sluts, so."

"A seven?"

The others hum into pondering, and it's only like this that they are quiet and not jostling, when they are being the disgusting creatures they are, plotting on how to play their cards right, how to move the pieces of their toys in their direction.

"I say seven point five." Someone says, and everybody thinks of Ethel who is conservative and quiet and rarely looking at boys, and agrees, smirking and cackling and already planning.

"What about you, Jason?" Chuck asks, grinning, from beside him. And there's a strange hush over the room; quiet and not jostling, when they are being disgusting creatures listening to the opinions of their leader, their master — and Jason almost slams his head against the metal surface of his locker.

"Hn?"

"You haven't had an entry in the playbook yet," Chuck points out, but it is by no means menacing, because they all know — the entirety of Riverdale does, really — that at the spare glance of one Jason Blossom he has every woman, tied to or not, at his inevitable command, disposal, use or whatnot. Jason throws his deodorant and shrugs at Chuck, before leaving the awed looks and praises behind him.

—

Nobody asks what he got from his parents from as a gift. Their logic is as natural as the sun sinking at the end of the day: if Cheryl has a handbag worth tens of thousands of dollars, then Jason obviously has a higher worth more, right?

Jason almost throws his head, cackling, because it's ridiculous, and indubitably — _right_.

His fingers trace the hard metal of his gift, and contemplates in very fecund ways of breaking it, destroying it, snapping it in half and throwing it into shreds and burning into ashes in a fire or preferably the comically large and luxurious berth of their fireplace, when he hears a soft, tinkering, frightened little — " _oh,"_ — and the hairs of his neck immediately _stand._

Polly Cooper is at her locker, hands small and deft, searching for the contents in her bag: the search is fruitless, and her friend taps her foot in impatience with the crossing of her arms.

"Polly, we're gonna be late for — "

"You go ahead," still she doesn't lift her eyes from her searching, and with a huff her companion leaves.

Jason lingers for a while, and it doesn't take too long for the hallways to clear until they're the only ones left.

He walks up to her and coughs.

Polly startles, looking up, and startles again, spilling a notebook from her arms, with Jason catching it before it falls to the ground.

"Careful — you almost — "

" _Sorry!_ Um, thank — "

They talk at the same time; Polly squeaking and breathless, nervous with the proximity, and Jason, voice lower than it has been, and breathless, too, with something he has been hesitating to put his finger on ever since he first laid his eyes on her.

"What're you looking for?" Jason asks quietly instead, because there is no way Polly would be the one to do the first move.

She startles again, and when she looks up to meet his eyes, Jason trembles at how small she is, and how big he is, and wonders what he looks right now from someone else's point of view. He can only muster up one word to that thought: hungry.

Usually... usually this is when their eyes would shy down from his. The most eye contact he had gotten would be two minutes, between the stretch of one-sided conversations and brief, awkward, pauses — and that was from his own twin sister, whom he was very fond of. Even his own mother did not bother to meet his eyes for more than a glimpse, while his father barely even looked at him.

Polly Cooper, ever since freshman year, has been a surprise, albeit a welcoming one. He had dismissed his times of observing her from afar as an odd case of curiosity, since Jason had always this keen sense of people-reading. He could tell apart the people who at his first glance would be selfish and ominous and — _"pestiferous,"_ he had thought back then as he first stepped into Riverdale High and met the gaze of Chuck Clayton, resisting his urge to turn around and walk away when he should have. And in this school filled with people of varying red with evil, green with greed, and violet with vicarious enigmas coming curiously from one Miss Grundy, a streak of a bright, shimmering yellow in his peripheral had shook his foundations to the ground. It only took one single look, before he had ensnared her and her blonde hair and something-green, something-blue eyes into memory.

This is the first time they are talking.

And she surprises him greatly today, when her something-green, something-blue eyes don't leave his, not even when he sees the words faltering in her mouth, not even when her hands are shaking as she hugs her books closer to her chest.

"English," she says, tone a tad higher, "we have this writing... essay thing, and it accounts for like thirty percent of our grade this semester, and I just — "

Briefly, Jason wonders why he didn't bother talking to her in the past. If he had, would the days of staleness clogging his throat and of heaviness pulling down his lids lessen? Would the days where the space of his heart thumping solid and real increase? Would he actually experience more moments like this, when her eyes are on him and her voice lilting to answer his?

" — and Principal Weatherbee chose me for this, um, this contest on writing for the communist issue in — "

He's still listening, of course, and vaguely he registers the reason why it took two whole school years for them to get to talk. He never had an excuse why, in the first place. Polly Cooper is soft-eyed and angel-faced and is one of the top in their class, always on par with him or Cheryl. She is also a Vixen, but never gets to attend the parties after every game, every session, every weekend, and not because she wasn't invited, no — but she's not allowed to. Polly Cooper, who is prim and proper and shy and reserved, always docile and demure, like a quaint, pastel color in Jason's harsh, multi-colored sight. Polly Cooper, who is always ready with almost everything, pens in her pocket and even more in her bag; books stacked and ready; water bottle and tampons and hand lotion at a check —

Jason chuckles right then and there. Polly halts, scared, color draining from her face because Jason is beyond terrifying right now, no doubt. But really, stupid Polly, the boy's just being _giddy_. There's a thrum in his veins and a stark sensation in his whole body, because this is his chance, and it's funny, he thinks, how fate works. He has this one thing that the ever-perfect and ever-ready Polly doesn't have and he chuckles again, frothy with a feeling.

"Here," he says, producing an object from the depths to his pocket and onto the flat palm of his hands. "Take it."

Polly gapes, squinting at the twinkling it does against the fluorescent lights above them. "Aren't these... diamonds?" She asks, very hesitantly.

"Don't be stupid," he admonishes, albeit gently. "Don't want it?"

Polly flushes, looks at the wall clock, and, stammering, "I-If you insist!" And the small touch that occurs as Polly's fingers skim against his open hand to hold the thing is enough for Jason's eyes to darken into slits.

"Return it to me tomorrow, in front of the library." He says, clipped, and turns away.

—

Jason is not fickle — far from it — to let such a small encounter throw him off of his axis. But still he would be damned enough if he were to let go of that small ray of _something_ to escape his trivial intrigue.

The thing is, it has been past the hour he's supposed to meet a certain blonde girl with a smile as soft as pastel yellow and he's disappointingly losing his interest.

Instead of being angry, he sighs, and thinks, _A pity_ , because she had been the first, he supposes, to make him feel all the things he had felt the day before. But he's rational, and young, and stupidly attractive, and _heh_ , there are a thousand girls at his beck and call, who are as pretty, if not prettier. There's bound to be one, temporary someone there for him that will make the insides of him stir — or whatever. Right?

Soon enough his usual clique is right on tow behind him as he stalks the school hallways with an unnamed fervor (he refuses to think of it as anything related to that blonde girl), and acknowledges Cheryl who falls into step close, but ultimately, behind him.

"Jay-jay," she greets, languid and easy, "so everyone has been pestering me about the present Mommy and Daddy gave you — it's really strange that they're only curious now, but don't you think you should show everyone just exactly what it is? I'm sure they'd be surprised. Never in a bad manner, mind you."

"A new car," Moose says. And then they're all throwing suggestions here and there: a new designer coat, maybe, or a car, or a share of their Blossom income, or tickets to Dubai, or a _condo_ in Dubai —

"A fountain pen." Comes Jason's deadpanned voice.

Everyone is quiet.

 _"...what?"_ is Reggie's way of breaking the silence, and when Jason detects the undertones of a laughter coming its way to his throat, it is Cheryl that rounds up against him, hair swooshing behind her.

"And for everyone's information," she says, voice taking the shape of something prideful and high-pitched, loud enough for the whole vicinity of the hallways to hear, haughty and excited and, "it's the one and only _Ripple HRH Limited Edition Visconti Fountain Pen!_ "

Everyone looks at her confusedly.

Cheryl rolls her eyes. "It costs $57,000."

" _WHAT THE FU—?!"_

"Are you serious." Chuck asks, then gulps. "Oh my fucking shit _you're serious_."

"Wait, what..." Reggie puts a hand to his head, massaging it with care. " _That's..._ "

As expected, Jason thinks, already fed up with all the reactions. There are even people screaming in the distance. He turns back his head to look at his front again, and.

And.

Polly is there. Standing. Face contorted into the most shocked face he'd ever encountered that it was so damn _hilarious._

"What are you doing here?" Cheryl snarls, but Jason raises a hand to stop her.

Because suddenly his heart is beating loud and clear than all the jeering and yelling of his schoolmates combined, because suddenly there's warmth creeping onto every single part of Jason's pale and snowy skin, because suddenly, Jason is laughing, and Polly is still agape; her eyes stupidly wide and cheeks flushed with color as red as Jason's hair, and because —

This girl. This complete nobody. This small thing. She is standing in front of him. Not behind him. Not beneath him. She is standing. In. _Front_. Of. _Him._ Eyes meeting his head-on and not backing down and. Just.

"Those really _were_ diamonds!" She yelps, almost crying, and Jason just laughs louder.

"Why?" He teases, and steps forward to see her better, to feel her closer. "You lost it or something?"

When Polly's breath hitches, Jason only laughs until he's crying.

 _Good_ , is what he thinks, when Cheryl shrieks bloody murder and Polly is panicking in front of him.

That only means he has an excuse to talk to her everyday from now on.


End file.
